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"A Field of Darkness" by Cornelia Read

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Anonymous
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Madeline Dare was rumored to have an almost “photogenic memory”.

Her first recognition of the crime came, when she saw the ill matched color of the dead girls’ garlands. Blond Hair was matched with White Roses and the Brunette Girl wore a Garland fashioned of dark red roses. Ill matched colors.

The choice of color appeared premeditated from the Fairy Tale, “Snow White and Rose Red”. The deaths of Sophie and Delphine Descognets, French au pairs from Buffalo, deviated greatly from the Fairy Tale. Snow White and Rose Red lived happily ever after, whereas Sophie and Delphine were brutally murdered. The only visual details in common were the girls’ coloring and the red and white roses that the girls in the Fairy Tale had been named after. He did place the girls close together, barefoot and holding hands after their death to follow the storyline. The idea of killing the girls was his own. It did not originate with the Fairy Tale.

The killing of Archie Sembles, the Silhouette Cutter, again did not follow the storyline with one of the stories out of “The Struwwelpeter”. Whereas in the Fairy Tale a child was sucking his thumbs and was threatened with having his thumbs cut off by a Schneider (Tailor) if he did not stop, in this story Archie Sembles was brutally killed and then his thumbs were cut off. A slight deviation in the telling of the story regarding life and death. The retired cop’s name was Schneider and completely coincidental. Although Schneider turned out to be a blackmailer, he was not involved in Archie Sembles death.

Lapthorne the Murderer was steeped in Fairy Tales. He could not separate them from real life. Every time he killed, he followed partway a tale he’d read as a child.

“The Little Mermaid” was used in the killing of Egon’s daughter, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” in the killing of his friend and accomplice Chris. When he killed Kenny, Persephone played on his mind.

The last intended double murder of Ellis Clark and Maddie Dare were supposed to have proceeded in the footsteps of “The Little Match Girl”.

The story was troubled with psychopaths. Not only was Lapthorne a total nut case, but his whole family was like a field of hand grenades. Someone was always ready to explode at any given moment. The unraveling of the end of the story was a no big surprise. The story followed a trail and came to its predictable and ultimate conclusion.